Monsters attract Monsters
by HetaHetare
Summary: You may view yourself as an outcast, as a monster, but don't worry...even monsters can have a family, a place that they belong. As events unfold, Big Al, Sweet Ann and Oliver learn this fact by pushing through their own pain and learning to embrace who they are.
1. Chapter 1

Some men work hard in life. They start at the bottom of some forsaken place, and they claw their way up using whatever they had. For the man who called himself Richard Hammersmith but whose real name was long gone into the before place, he'd clawed his way up with his mind. Oh yes, smart boy, clever boy, but an outcast even when he started to make millions. They called his inventions extraordinary and praised how they improved their lives. Tiny helpful robots and cheap cosmetics that really reduced the signs of ageing and kept them away.

He felt hollow though, the money and praise meant nothing. Woman threw themselves at him, wanting him to give them money in return for sex, not at all interested in the man himself. Not that he hadn't bedded a few...he still felt a lack of respect from the people. Especially when a rival inventor had appeared and proved to be twice as efficient as him. Richard groaned and straightened up for a moment, his back aching from bending over and messing with the intricate microchip he was altering. It had to be perfect before he put it in place, it was the final piece of the puzzle.

The light in his lab was on low, the place naturally illuminated by buzzing machines. Two of them sparked, looking like giant springs thrust into the air as they twisted electricity very softly through the body of the thing on the table in front of him. Richard smiled, he was going to create life. Actual live...see if that bastard King could do that. Yes, this was his baby. Richard laughed, his 'baby' was a 6'4'' man mostly made of metal, but also with controversially harvested body parts from recently dead people. He had to look perfect, he had to be perfect. He'd be handsome, but strike fear into people's hearts. "You're more handsome than I am, my son." he muttered, still rubbing at his back. He'd only recently completed the face. He'd given this man brown hair with strips of white, under closed eye lids golden coloured eyes rested. That colour wasn't natural, it was the colour of the length behind them that hit the flow of nanobots that would constantly move through his 'sons' body and keep him ageless. Truly ageless, it was nanobots in his cosmetics too.

"A strong nose and jaw line..." he stroked the cold artificial flesh, soon it would be warm. "Yes, maybe you're not beautiful but you're handsome to me." he considered that he deserved a break, but he was so close. Instead, Richard bent back over the body. He amused himself with the thought of how he might develop a permanent hump, become Igor rather than Doctor Frankenstein. Not that he planned to let his baby be a toy for the world, no, he was done with the world and their falseness. How they would cast you down when a newer model came out and act as though you'd never suffered just to please them.

Richard finished with the chip and picked it up carefully with some tweezers. He placed it in the empty slot and picked up the top of his creations head, slotting it into place and then using metal thread to stitch the front on. It would be a while before the software picked up the new addition, the final addition, AI and life.

Richard sat and mused on what he should call his large monster child. Somehow, it drew him back into his past. He'd been a shrimp of a kid, was still a shrimp of a man and everyone had always pushed him around. Even when he was no longer a child, everyone had called him 'Little Allan' he shuddered at the memory of his real name and old self. Yes, it had always been poor little Allan. Little Allan who can't do anything. Little Allan the nerd. Little Allan who can be pushed over by a strong gust of wind. He had it, he knew the name and almost slammed the activation button on the machine to start the stronger flow of electricity that would jog his baby into life. "Come on, come on, live...live...you will live. You will live and people will fear you, they'll fear you and me, no more Little Allan, no no, you'll be my very own Big Al."


	2. Chapter 2

Usually, when someone is born, it is the sound of their own cries that fill the air as they react to the shock of cold and light. When He was born, not only was His body already strong and full grown, but the one making the cries was the small man next to Him. He sat up and this seemed to bring more shrieking from the man. His AI picked up language and gave it meaning. "Yes, God yes, you're beautiful, my dear beautiful boy! Look at you, alive and well! Sat up and alert, I say I say, can you understand me? Nod your head if you can."

He nodded His head, pieces of hair that were loose from the slicked back hairdo He'd been given tickled against His stitched forehead. More strange sounds from the man, but these had no language in them. His AI told Him these were simply sounds of delight. The man was also crying, something His AI associated more readily with sadness. The confusing messages made Him frown softly, but He would learn in time. The man calmed down, breathing irregularly but no longer making the funny sounds. He was still crying too, grinning but crying too, as if all his dreams had come true. "Your name is Al." the man told Him. "And I am your father."

His name was Al. Al logged that to his most secure memory banks, his identity was important. This man was his father. Father. What did Father mean? It was the name of a parent, of a life-giver. Al saved that to his secure memory banks. Father, this man was his father, to whom he owed life. Al wasn't yet sure he enjoyed living or was even okay with it. He had not been programmed with a proper sense of life and death, Richard didn't want him to develop a conscience. He had to be the perfect weapon. Would they call in the police, the army? No. The villages around here were poor, out of the way. Many places didn't even have electricity yet. Richard's products had always been shipped out. He'd use Al to concur these unfortunate places, and make more of him to combat armies. That would be harder, but he'd already done such wonderful things.

Al rose a hand in front of him, flexing his arm and clenching his fist, wiggling his fingers. "That's it, go ahead and get used to your body, my son." Father stepped back, and Al tried out his legs. He looked quite comical, bending and flexing and moving, as if he had ants in his pants and was trying to shake them out. Al was then ordered to sit back down, and Father kept asking him questions to which he nodded or shook his head or preformed. (Could he lift a weight? Sure he could.)

"Al...can you talk?" Richard had realized that his wonderful creation, as dimly intelligent as it seemed, had not yet spoken a single world. If Al couldn't speak, he'd need to find out why and alter him again. That would take more time, time he didn't really have if he wanted to have the surrounding villages before the cold winter blocked the surrounding woodland paths.

Al mulled over the question. Speech, could he perform that? He took in a deep breath and spoke. "I can speak." the volume was louder than he'd intended, and his words wobbled around as if he had no control over them. Richard smiled. He hadn't concentrated too much on the language centre, Al would need to practice his speaking.

"That's good enough." He thought for a moment. "Come with me, it's time to study." It would take a long time for him personally to teach things to Al, so instead the man-machine would study the old-fashioned way, from books. Richard led Al up the stairway leading off from the side of the lab and into the lower corridors. Al picked up new colours, orange, gold, green, blue...he liked colours, bright colours. The lab was mostly grey, black and white, red was the brightest colour and it was on his clothing. Al was endlessly curious as they progressed down the hallway, happily naming things to himself. Vase, window, painting, flowers, carpet, ornament, stairs...

Richard noticed the way his strange son's eyes flickered around and his chest swelled. His boy was learning things even now. Richard had been most proud of the artificial brain than the never-ageing cyborg body. He'd been messing with nanobots for a long time after all. Yes, this living brain was the crowning achievement. Nobody but he had created a machine that could learn and understand the world on the same level as a human. Al had been programmed with basic knowledge of a variety of things, mostly the names of things and their functions (of which he would always know and remember even without being shown the item), and even that was too much for current AI Richard knew of, to fully grasp. He was very proud of himself.

"Here." Richard stopped and Al came to a halt as they were led through large double doors into a room filled with books. "You are to scan the information in these books and save them to memory. Understand?"

"Yes, Father." Al replied, voice more controlled this time. Richard smiled and then, unable to help himself, wrapped his arms around Al. Al stood stiff as this happened, having no idea why his father was doing this and that something was expected back of him. It didn't matter, Richard left him be in the room of books. Al found of chair, gathered knowledge of it's function and sat down. There were already a few books on the table next to the chair, that seemed a good place to start. Al scanned the cover first, and then went on to the other pages.

_Chirp, chirp..._

Al rose his head and turned towards the sound. It was a balcony, something that led outside. There was an outside...yes, this world was not just the rooms in this place. Something like real happiness filled him. Books were boring, he wanted to see outside. Al rose and walked out onto the balcony, whose doors had been open already to air out the room. He leaned against the balcony and looked out. His world opened a little more. Outside was beautiful. He could see sky, trees, birds in the air. He could see the perimeters of the land around the house, he could feel things. He could feel the warmth of the sun, the slight chill of the wind. Being alive was good.

Al watched as a yellow and black bird landed on the balcony next to him. It twittered and chirped, cleaning itself and regarding him with stupid black eyes. Stupid...yes, Al knew. He saw no intelligence in those eyes. They were not smart as he was, as father was. Stupid things that could not read, could not learn...then, to his logic, they also did not feel. If they did not feel, their life was not important. Al's large hand jutted out for the bird, catching it even as it tried to fly off.

The bones crunched in his fist, the wings twisted out of shape and poked out from between his fingers. The stupid eyes lost all signs of life and kept staring out, bulged. Soft trickles of blood leaked out of it's beak as everything seemed forced upwards and away from the crushed body. Al stared and felt nothing for the bird, dropping it over the balcony and watching as it hit the gravel. Something would likely eat it, scavenge the body and find itself lucky. Al wiped his hand on his shirt and headed back inside. His destructive programming had been unlocked.


	3. Chapter 3

Al's memory banks were almost limitless. His days were boring and routine, and he was almost never let out of his 'fathers' sight. Leaving a vastly intelligent AI alone for too long without whispering poison to it might spawn terrible things like a sense of mercy.

_'They are all against you.'_

_'They want to destroy us.'_

_'They hate us.'_

_'They are stupid and weak and don't deserve life.'_

These were the mantra's that big Al came to live by. Every so often, Father would leave for a short while and Al would read and wait for his return. He read about the wars people got into, about their selfish political actions and utter lack of care for those they considered beneath them. He read books about how they hunted, bullied and even murdered anyone who was even slightly different to their precious norm. It brought anger to Al's circuits, or the parody of it that he was capable of. Father had told him it was real anger, but Al wasn't so sure.

On one of the days he was left alone, Al got bored of the book he was ready and went back down to the lab that had gave him a birth. He found what he'd wanted there, files upon files about himself and the technology that kept him alive. He memorized that, fascinated that the complex algorithms he was reading were some of what was responsible for his very birth.

But...where were Father's schematics? If Father was an intelligent being such as he was, and not one of the idiot full-flesh creatures (as Al had come to think of them) where were the files on how he was made, and who had made him? This troubled Al. If Father was one of the IFFC's, then that meant Father would have weaknesses, and would do stupid things and this didn't deserve life.

Al heard the door open upstairs and replaced the files, before going to greet the man who had made him. He was surprised though, to see that he'd brought along a large crate. Father was huffing and panting from getting it into the house on what looked to Al to be a large version of a wheeled carrier. Something inside growled and hit itself against the side of it. "Al, be good and take this outside to the training pen."

Al nodded and his strong hands clasped over the handle of the carrier and led it outside. The thing in the crate grew more agitated at the movement. The training pen was a place where Al was given things to break and was also sometimes shot at. Al did not like being shot at. He was not completely indestructible, especially when the bullets hit his more human parts. It made him enraged and he'd dismantled the self-firing guns piece by piece even as he bled out oil and nanobots.

"What is it?" Al asked, tapping the crate and getting a growl in return.

"A dog, large fellow, with rabies." Father replied.

Al knew about rabies, and how different creatures could transmit them to humans, how they made the person act completely irrational before killing them. It sounded terrible, but Al did not feel sorry for the mongrel that had them, nor at the idea of a human getting them. If they were stupid enough to get bitten, it was their own fault.

Father stepped forward and attached a rope to a loop of metal at the top of the crates door. He threaded it out through the chain-link safety fence and shit the door behind him. The rope was attached to a pulley and secured tightly. "Are you ready?"

Al supposed he was and nodded. Father used the pulley to open the door of the crate and the dog of mixed breed (somewhere between a St. Benard and a Doberman) charged out almost instantly. It's eyes were red and weeping distasteful gunk. It drooled and foamed at the mouth heavily and seemed to stagger as if intoxicated. The dog leapt at Al, as if the cyborg was the cause of all it's misery.

Al's hands grabbed the dogs underside and threw it almost too easily to the side, despite the fact that it probably weighed twice as much as he did. The dog came at him again, this time leaping. Al rose a hand as a shield and felt it sink it's teeth deep into his flesh, hitting the wires underneath. It was a texture the dog had not expected, nor really cared about. Al cried out and tried to shake the animal off, but it only held tighter and his arm started to spark.

The cloud of red hot anger descended again and Al dropped to the floor, grabbed the dog's tender underside and squeeze with his other hand. The animal yelped and let go, turning to try and bite him again. Al grabbed it by the neck, wrapped his good arm around it and squeezed. The dog thrashed, letting out hideous choking sounds. It wriggled and kicked, sounding more like it was honking than barking. The milky eyes rolled back into the creatures skull and it breathed no more. Al let go and the dogs head dropped to the ground with a soft thud.

Safely behind the fence, Richard made his notes. He would have to work on improving the strange delay in reaction that Al seemed to have. He wasn't sure if Al took so long to do anything because he was thinking about it too much, or simply because he was comprehending the situation properly. The next time he hoped his big boy would be the first to attack. Once he was completely ruthless, then he'd set Al on his enemies. Richard grinned.


End file.
